Rākau Kōrero/The Message Stick

Munda is the Wirangu and Kokatha word for land - “It’s our mother, our provider. If you look after munda, it’ll look after you.” Munda Wines is an Aboriginal-owned wine company founded on deep cultural values and grounded in Country. Director and Co-Founder Pauly Vandenbergh, a proud Wirangu and Kokatha man, shares how he’s rewriting the narrative of wine in Australia — with integrity, purpose, and place at its heart.   More Than Terroir Munda is the Wirangu and Kokatha word for land — and pre-dates the French notion of terroir by over 65,000 years. “We don’t believe you can...

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In this instalment we talk to architect Jade Kake about design from a Māori perspective, and provide some tips for positive collaborations between Māori and non-Māori. In GSM23, we featured BEST purple winning project; Rewi: Ata haerre, kia tere. A book celebrating the work of Māori architect Rewi Thompson. Following on from this, we reached out to author of the book, Jade Kake, architect and housing advocate. We asked Jade for her thoughts around design from a Māori perspective. Whilst her thoughts centre around the built-form, much of this can easily be applied to visual communication. Here’s what Jade had to offer… Kia ora...

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At RUN Aotearoa, we beleive that design is storytelling - connecting people, cultures, and communities. As a Māori-owned globally award-winning agency based in Tāmaki Makaura Auckland, storytelling lies at the heart of what we do.  When we co-founded RUN, it began like many creative agencies—working across a variety of clients without a specific niche. Over time, our direction evolved, driven by both internal reflections and the needs of our clients. Today, our agency spans advertising, design, and cultural storytelling. Much of our mahi is for clients who are Māori-owned or Māori-led. Or organisations with a Māori strategy, or are wanting...

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What we do is not learned or taught… It's lived, it's in our blood! It's our identity! Pat Caruso, founder and director of We Create Print Deliver, is, first and foremost, an Eastern Arrernte First Nations Graphic Designer and Artist. GSM talks with Pat about his unique story in search of his bi-cultural identity. Pat’s journey to reconnect with his Eastern Arrernte roots is a powerful testament to identity and resilience. Especially when we consider how it was disrupted by his mother’s removal in the 1950s. Through his business and art, Pat has bridged his personal and community identity. He...

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In this installment of Rākau Kōrero, we talk to design educator Carl Pavletich about navigating bi-cultural design from a non-Māori perspective. For Pākehā, navigating the bi-cultural design process feels uncomfortable— like floating in a proverbial waka without a hoe. When your life experience falls heavily on the Western/Pākehā side of the scales, the bi-cultural journey is dauntingly steep and disorientating. Much of what we do, we do without thinking. For example, when we master a skill, we create subconscious shortcuts. Mātauranga Māori challenges us to question our worldviews and reassess much of what we thought was true. Participating in a bi-cultural...

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In this issue of The Message Stick, Rebecca Wessels further enlightens us on how best to incorporate First Nations art and culture into commercial work in a sympathetic and respectful manner. For tens of thousands of years, First Nations peoples commonly used message sticks as a way of communicating between different groups in Australia. For GSM, the concept of The Message Stick is that the stick will be passed from speaker to speaker to continue our discussion about First Nations culture and traditional knowledge. Our intention is for these discussions to provide some guidance and understanding of how we can...

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GSM talks to Dr Johnson Witehira (Tamahaki, Ngāti Hinekura, Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tū-te-Auru) about the principles of design from a traditional Mātaranga Māori perspective. Our nation is moving towards a more inclusive future, with an increasing appreciation of the uniqueness and the value of Māoritanga (Māori culture) to our country. Recently, this has extended into the teaching of visual communication. In fact, for students beginning studies in a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication) course, there is now a requirement to understand Mātaranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge) in relation to the Principles of Design. This is a significant step forward. In this article,...

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GSM talks to Dr Johnson Witehira about Indigenous Design Methodologies - and discovers that; whilst having Māori working on 'Indigenous' work is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, having a fuller understanding of process - will result in a more meaningful output beyond simply achieving the 'right' aesthetic> Design companies throughout New Zealand are scrambling to hire Māori designers. For some, this investment is merely superficial; having a Māori designer means they can win the work they couldn’t get before. Sometimes this is to the detriment of Māori design organisations. For others, though, there seems to be a genuine...

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